situated at the bottom of a narrow valley, crossed by a torrent. Beyond the town is a very steep mountain, with a winding road on its side; and it was by this road that the guerillas were now seen retreating by the French troops. The magistrates of the Junta of Soto' (M. de Rocca observes), and a number of ⚫ priests in long black cloaks, marched first. They had nearly ⚫ attained the summit of the mountain. They were followed by the treasure and baggage, upon mules tied behind one another in files; then came the soldiers in uniform, and a number of peasants armed with fowling pieces, marching without any order, and a crowd of inhabitants of all ages and sexes, hastening out of the town pellmell with the guerillas. The agitation of so great a number of men, pressing by different paths towards the tops of the heights, offered the most picturesque appearance to the eye.' The Spaniards were alarmed at the first sight of the French; but when they discovered that it was only an outpost, they recovered their presence of mind, and immediately made the whole side of the mountain re-echo with their prolonged and guttural cries. They then dispersed among the rocks, pointing their muskets on every side at their pursuers, and exclaiming, with a thousand curses, Come, if you dare, and look a little closer at the brigands,' the name which they knew the French soldiers gave them, from their disorderly manner of fighting Night coming on, the French entered Soto; and after wasting the three subsequent days in an unsuccessful pursuit of the flying enemy, they returned to Logronio, from whence they had set out. The pursuit of general Mina, which was undertaken about the same time, turned out equally fruitless. M. de Rocca soon afterwards proceeded to join his regiment in Andalusia; and gives a very pleasing description of the state of the country, and the manners of the inhabitants. Immediately on crossing the chain of mountains which separates Andalusia from the other provinces of Spain, the difference of climate is sensibly felt; and the magnificence of the country which the traveller discovers before him, forms a complete contrast to the sterility of the mountains through which he has passed. At the time De Rocca crossed the Sierra Morena, the peasantry were engaged in the olive harvest; and the country had, towards the end of winter, that cheerful and animated aspect which more northern districts only assume during the time of harvest or the vintage. The road lay through long plantations of olives, under whose protecting shade vines and corn were alternately growing. The fields are generally surrounded by hedges of aloes, whose leaves are as pointed as lan ces, and whose slender stems shoot up to the height of trees. Behind the dwelling-houses, thick orchards of orange trees were generally planted; and on the uncultivated ground on the banks of the rivulets, the white laurel and the olcatider were in flower. A few old palm trees are still seen in the gardens of the curates, who preserve them for the sake of distributing their branches on palm Sunday. The bread of Andalusia is considered to be the whitest and most exquisite in the world; and the olives grow to a most extraordinary size. The sky is so serene and pure, that the inhabitants, during the summer, and even during the winter, frequently pass the whole night under the virandas. In every part of the country the traces of Moorish manners still remain; and it is this singular mixture of the usages and customs of the East with those of Christianity, that particularly distinguishes the inhabitants of this part of Spain from those of other European countries. The town houses are almost all built after the Moorish fashion, having in the middle a large court paved with flag-stones, in the centre of which is a basin, shaded by the cypress and lemon tree, from which fountains continually arise to refresh the air. Orange trees, bearing leaves, flowers and fruit, during the whole year, are spread over the walls. The different apartments' (M. de Rocca observes) communicate with each other by the court; and there is commonly an interior gate on the same side, with the door opening to the street. In the ancient palaces of the Moorish kings and nobles, such as the Alhambra of Grenada, the courts are ornamented with colonnades or porticoes, whose narrow and numerous arches are supported by very tall slender columns. Ordinary houses have a single and very plain interior court, with a cistern, shaded by a large citron tree in one corner. A sort of pitcher or jar in which water is put to cool, usually hangs near, the door, or wherever there is a current of air. These pitchers are called alcarazas; and their name, which is Arabic, indicates that they were introduced into Spain by the Moors.' M. de Rocca mentions various other points of resemblance between the manners of Andalusia and those of Arabia. The Andalusians, like the Arabians, rear numerous flocks, which, during the winter, they feed on the plains, and, in summer, send to graze on the tops of the mountains. Their horses are of Arabian origin; and the distinctions paid in Arabia to pure and noble blood, prevail also in Spain. The Andalusian horse is of a generous nature. He is spirited and gentle—pleased and animated by the sound of the trumpet-sensible of caresses, and extremely docile; so that though he is overcome with fatigue, he seems to recover new strength from encouragement and flattery, and makes exertions from emulation which blows could never have extorted from him. Travelling throughout Spain is mostly performed on horseback; and, in many provinces, goods are still transported on the backs of males. The streets of the old towns are of Moorish building, and are not made for carriages, being narrow and winding, and the successive storeys jutting out the farther the higher they rise. The inns in Andalusia, and generally throughout Spain, are more caravanseras, which afford no other accommodation but lodging, and room for horses and mules. Travellers carry along with them their own provisions; and they generally sleep upon their horse-cloths. The country women sit, after the Moorish fashion, upon circular mats of reeds; and in some convents, where ancient customs are transmitted without any alteration, the nuns sit after the manner of the Turks, without knowing that they derive this fashion from the enemics of their faith. The mantilla, a sort of large woollen veil worn by the lower class of people in Andalusia, and which conceals their whole figure except their eyes, seems to have originated in the large scarf in which the Eastern women wrap themselves when they go out. The Spanish dances, particularly the different kinds of fandango, resemble those of the East. The custom of playing the castanets while dancing, and of singing sequedillas, still exists among the Arabs of Egypt; and the scorching wind which comes from the cast, is called in Andalusia the Medina wind. The Andalusians have a singular custom of eating salt pork every day at their meals, of which M. de Rocca suggests the following ingenious explanation. This meat, unwholesome in hot countries, is prohibited by the sacred laws of all the nations of the East, and is an abomination to them. At the time when Spain was conquered by the Christians, and before the entire expulsion of the Moors, there were in Andalusia, a great number of Mussulmans and Jews, who had become converts in appearance only, in order to obtain permission to remain in the country. The Christian Spaniards then eat pork, as a test among themselves; and it was, so to speak, a kind of profession of faith. p. 224. M. de Rocca concludes his parallel between the manners of Andalusia and those of the East, by pointing out the striking similarity between the mode of warfare adopted in many parts of Spain, and that of various tribes whom the French had to fight on the banks of the Nile. After remaining some time at Seville, M. de Rocca was ordered, with the reinforcements which he brought from France, to proceed to Ronda, a small town about thirty miles from Gil raltar. During the march, they were harassed as usual by the hostility of the inhabitants; and at Olbera, in place of a young cow which was demanded for the supply of the troops, they sent an ass cut up into four quarters. The hussars, M. de Rocca observes, thought that the veal, as they called it, avoit le goût un peu fade; but they soon learned the deception which had been practised upon them from the mountaineers themselves, who cried out while they were firing on them, You have eaten asses' flesh at Olbera ! At Ronda the French were perpetually annoyed by the attacks of the Spanish irregular force; and in one of those encounters, M. de Rocca received a ball through his body, and another in his thigh. He was with difficulty euabled to regain his quarters at Ronda, where he was treated with extreme tenderness and humanity by his Spanish hosts. While they considered him the enemy of their country, and in a capacity to assist in destroying its independence, they were cold and reserved in their demeanour; but after he was brought home wounded, they took the most lively interest in his fate, and, for nearly two months, waited upon him with unremitting attention. When his regiment left the place, their care of him redoubled; they passed several hours each day in his room; and, after he began to recover, they invited some of their neighbours every evening to come and converse, or to perform a little concert by his bedside. In these concerts they generally sung their national airs, which they accompanied with the guitar. M. de Rocca left Ronda on the 22d June; and, on parting with his hosts, experienced, as he assures us, the same painful feeling as if he had been leaving, for the first time, his paternal roof; while they, on their part, were equally afflicted, having naturally become attached to the object of their benevolence. It is delightful, we think, to contemplate the heavenly light of humanity, thus, as it were, breaking athwart the gloomy path of cruelty and of blood, M. de Rocca returned to France with a numerous caravan of reduced officers, escorted by only 75 foot soldiers. Not a single traveller met them on the long and solitary road over which they had to travel. They saw occasionally convoys of ammunition, or they were joined by escorts of troops, who lodged along with them in the ruins of deserted villages. Instead of the ⚫ crowd of children' (M. de Rocca remarks) and idle specta'tors, which usually in time of peace meet strangers at the en⚫trance of a country village, we now saw only a small French outpost, which, from behind its palisade, would cry Halt, in order to reconnoitre us. Sometimes also, in a deserted vil lage, a sentry would suddenly appear placed in an old tower like a solitary owl among ruins. The work concludes with a very brief and perspicuous account of the campaign in Portugal, which took place after our author quitted Spain, and which he justly terms the chef-d'œuvre of a defence at once national and military.' In this part of his work, however, he is merely a historian; and his narrative wants, of course, that vivacity and interest which he has communicated to his account of those scenes of which he was an eyewitness. His great merit as a writer, appears to be, that he contrives to embody and preserve, in his descriptions, all his own passing emotions; and when he writes, therefore, from his own observation, he must, of course, be more interesting than when he merely puts together the observations of others. ART. IV. Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent during the Years 1799-1804. By ALEXANDER DE HUMBOLDT and AIMé BONPLAND. Written in French by ALEXANDER DE HUMBOLDT, and translated into English by HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS. London, 1814. W E return again, with much satisfaction, to a work of the same accomplished and interesting traveller, whose Researches we so lately analyzed. The title of a Personal Narrative of Travels, may not, perhaps, convey to every one a very precise notion of the work to which it is prefixed. On the present occasion, it is to be understood as denoting a history of travels, arranged in the order of time, and relatively to the traveller himself, rather than to the objects described. This work, therefore, more nearly resembles an ordinary book of travels, than any of the seven distinct treatises for which the observations of MM. HUMBOLDT and BONPLAND have furnished such valuable and abundant materials. * It was altogether impossible that * These works are enumerated in the Introduction. 1. Astronomical Observations, 2 volumes in 4to. 2. Equinoctial Plants, collected in Mexico, the isle of Cuba, &c. 2 vol. folio, with more than 120 plates. 3. Monography of the Melastomas, with coloured plates. 2 vol. folio. 4. Essay on the Geography of Plants. 5. Collection of Observations in Zoology and Comparative Anatomy. 2 vol. 4to. 6. Political Essay on the History of New Spain. 2 vol. 4to, with an Atlas of twenty charts in folio. 7. Views of the Cordilleras. 1 vol. folio, with 60 plates. 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